Field
The disclosed subject matter is generally directed to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), via which data is communicated between, e.g., a utility, such as an electric power company, and e.g., meters that are located at the premises of the customers of the utility. The exemplary embodiments are particularly aimed at efficient and economical communications between the meters and the utility servers via utility wireless network gateways (access points).
Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 shows an example of a subnetwork 10 in a known AMI system. In this example, each house 12 represents the location of, e.g., a meter that measures a customer's consumption of a commodity, such as electric power, provided by a utility 14. In addition to the amount of power being consumed, the meter may provide other pertinent data, such as peak consumption for the premises, average consumption for each hour, power outage conditions, tampering indications, etc.
All of the meters in a given geographic area may constitute end-points that are connected in a subnetwork having an access point (AP) 16 that provides for egress of the meter data out to the utility, and for ingress of utility commands to the end-point nodes. In one embodiment, the meters may communicate their respective data to the access point by way of power line carrier (PLC), in which the data is transmitted via the same conductors that deliver the electric power to the customers' premises. In such an embodiment, the access point can function as an aggregator. The access point can include a suitable interface to a backhaul link for transmitting the data received from the subnetwork's meters to the utility. In a known implementation, this backhaul link comprises a cellular modem that communicates with the utility by way of a suitable mobile data service, such as GPRS or CDMA/EVDO.
In another example, European Patent Pub. No. EP 1 677 270 A1 discloses a system where meters can transmit data to a gathering unit via a mix of low power radio or BLUETOOTH, PLC or mobile communications technology, e.g., cellular modems. The gathering unit can then subsequently send data to a concentrator via PLC.
An electric power distribution system of the utility might have a large number of such subnetworks associated with it. Each of the subnetworks within the AMI may operate in a similar manner. FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary communication system, in which each of the subnetworks 10a, 10b . . . 10n includes one or more access points that function to receive the data from each of the meters in the subnetwork, and communicate directly with the utility to forward that data. Deploying and operating a communications network of this type can result in a significant expense. First, the cellular modems themselves can be costly, and therefore the need to deploy thousands or tens of thousands of such modems for the individual subnetworks can result in a significant capital expenditure. Furthermore, the operational expenditures associated with such a large number of modems, both in terms of the operation of the modems themselves and the need to manage communications with a large number of modems at the central utility site, can be appreciable.